Grow a tree – The Process Tree

Huge processes, step by step by step. The development or improvement of processes for production and product development can be very difficult. Confusing long life cycles and processes. All kind of influences and external effects.

You need an overview providing some useful insights, to reach it we will draw a tree of processes. This is what we want to do now.

To identify issues and problems in a manufacturing process or a product live cycle can be very difficult. One way to get a better overview will be the process tree method. Using this method, you can identify steps and teams involved in the process or production environment. Do you know who is doing what for your product. Do you know all supplier? Who else is involved? What are key milestones and tricky steps in the process.

The process tree will help you to understand

Let’s do an example and think of a developer team who want to improve the production process for one of there products. To identify critical points causing possible risks they need to understand the over all process of production. So they decide to create a process tree.

Firs step – Start at the beginning

They need to set a starting point. For example, you can choose the initial point where the product will be produced. This will be our start point to develop the process tree.

Second Step – Follow the line

The team will count and describe the main milestones in the product production and delivery process. Manufacturing. packaging the product, Store the products, product delivery, Sell the product to your customers.

Third Steps – Look at the influencer

The next step would be to include the influencer and dependencies into the tree. Where is the packaging come from? Who will deliver the product? Who is the retailer.

Fourth step – Influence the influencer

The next step, include new influences to your tree. Raw materials for the packaging production. Requirements for your logistics company. And so on so on.

Finally

All these steps will result in a huge tree of steps and dependencies. More steps and more layers will deliver more and more information about your product live cycle and the production process. At the end you will get a very clear view on all influences and critical functions and you can have a closer look on them. Identifying risks and possible problems.

You will be surprised on how many steps and stakeholder you can identify using this method. A great step ahead in the way to improve your process and work. Reducing risks and problems. Identify possible step ins for innovation and improvements.

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